Jehovah’s Witnesses ease shunning rules after blow in Oslo court

 Evert van Vlastuin, CNE.news  Now they can say hello, then ignore them.

. . ."The new rules published in a video mid-March include a softening of the contact ban. Members may use their “Bible-trained conscience” to decide on a “simple greeting” to a person removed from the congregation. It is no longer expected “to ignore him completely”." . . .

"Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide have eased the discipline for youth members after “serious wrongdoing”. The new guideline came within two weeks after the decision of the Oslo District Court in Norway to strip the Jehovahs of their official status as a registered faith community.

"The faith community seems to be trying to get a better position in the appeal case in Norway. The community came under attack for its rigid rules regarding discipline to “baptised minors”.

"Among Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is usual that children choose for baptism between 12 and 16 years. Religiously, they are seen as responsible members than, who can be disciplined. There have been cases of “disfellowship” after “serious wrongdoing”, resulting in “shunning”, isolation and contact bans. For individuals and families, this can be rigid and feel like psychological violence.

"For the Norwegian state, this practice is controversial because those “baptised minors” are legally still kids. The state feels responsible for protecting the minors. After complaints of psychological violence, the authorities decided in 2021 to rip the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Norway from the legal status, which they had since 1985. According to experts, this is the first time a faith community lost its legal position in Norway.

"This registration in Norway gives access to huge amounts of state subsidies. The monetary support is about NOK 16 million (1.3 million euros) every year. Over three years, together with interest, the JW demanded NOK 50 million (4.3 million euros).

"With the de-registration, the Jehovah’s Witnesses also lost the right to perform civil marriages. Traditionally, marriages were performed by the Lutheran state church. Nowadays, all recognised faith communities (including the Humanist Society) can perform civil marriage." . . .

Former Jehovah's Witnesses break silence about practice of shunning  . . .“ 'If you’re in the organization, you understand the depression and despair,” said Kaye, who explained that when someone gets disfellowshipped, word spreads fast in the church. She admits that she once shunned her own father at the direction of the church.

. . ." “The moment they make an announcement, you’re not allowed to have contact with them whatsoever. You have to pretend they’re dead,” Kaye said. “That’s how they control the people. It’s a fear tactic. It’s to keep them in the cult, under their control.”. . .

UPDATE: Much more here: Do Jehovah's Witnesses actually shun family members?

One comment among several from TipVisual9341: "I have been shunned by my own son for the past 10 years since the organIzation said you can’t even talk to your own mother if she decides not to be in the cult!"

What does a typical week for a Jehovah's Witness look like? How many times do you go to Kingdom Hall? What days? - Quora   "Remember to shun your mother because she didn't want to be a JW anymore but make her feel it's HER fault she's being shunned.

"Also, shun the 13 year old boy who has been disfellowshipped for reporting his JW molester to the police and trying to warn the congregation about him (google Jehovah's Witness two witness rule, child abuse).

"No talking to ex members or questioning anything written in a Watchtower magazines because this is, apparently, God’s method of giving us information in these “last days”.

"And we all can’t wait for the “new system” after Armageddon because 65% of us are on antidepressants and are looking forward to owning a pet tiger in the new world." . . .

The Hour of Israeli Leadership has Arrived

 "Looking to his legacy, Biden may recognize that if he tries to block Israel from doing what it must, he will pay a price. Americans will not remember well a president that chose to shield Hezbollah from assault and so preserve its ability to destroy Israel."  c.g.

https://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Caroline Glick  . . ."On the face of things, since both Republicans and Democrats have played a role in forging the alliance – President Donald Trump through the Abraham Accords, and President Joe Biden by organizing the Arab states in support of intercepting Iran’s missiles and drones shot against Israel on April 14th – Netanyahu’s vision ought to really attract support from both sides of the aisle. The problem is that Trump and Biden view their regional alliance as a means to achieve opposite ends.

"Biden’s actions in the region are a continuation of those initiated by President Barack Obama and to understand his policies, they must be viewed in the context of Obama’s policies.

"Obama’s predecessors hoped to pay Iran off with a “grand bargain,” that could moderate its policies. That is, they believed Iran should change. In contrast, Obama believed the U.S. should change.

"Obama’s foreign policy was predicated on his anti-imperialist world view. Guided by its principles of Western culpability for the pathologies of the Middle East, Obama believed that Iran’s hostility towards the U.S. was justified. As he saw things, it was up to the U.S. to make amends to Iran by changing the way it operated in the Middle East.

"To accomplish this goal, Obama began realigning the U.S. towards Iran and its Sunni allies in the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of Israel and the U.S.’s traditional Sunni Arab allies.

"Obama’s betrayal of both Israel and the Sunni Arabs brought the long estranged neighbors together. The Israeli-Sunni partnership was first brought to bear in the 2014 Hamas war against Israel. Obama sided with Hamas’s state sponsors Qatar and Turkey and insisted that Israel accept the terror regime’s ceasefire demands. Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE, Netanyahu was able to withstand Obama’s pressure.

"The true birth of the Abraham alliance then, came without U.S. involvement, in response to the U.S.’s betrayal of Israel and the Sunni Arabs under the Obama administration.

"When Trump came into office, he abandoned Obama’s realignment and sought to rebuild America’s credibility in the eyes of its allies. To this end, Trump embraced the new Israeli-Sunni partnership using it as a means to rebuild U.S. credibility and reassert U.S. regional leadership." . . .

Harris-Walz Reactions: ‘He Let BLM Rioters’ Burn Minnesota and She ‘Encouraged Donations’ to Bail Out Those Arrested

 We all know why Harris didn’t pick Shapiro, too. Legal Insurrection

Gov. Tim Walz's reaction the BLM riots: "A society that does not put equity and inclusion first will come to this result" "This is who Kamala picked as her VP.

Tim Walz is a perfect choice for Kamala Harris.
He let BLM rioters, arsonists, and looters rampage through his state and she encouraged donations to the bail fund for the few who were arrested. pic.twitter.com/xA9I6i6yfF

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 6, 2024

 

 In selecting Walz, Harris passed over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish day-school graduate who has been smeared by the anti-Israel left as “Genocide Josh” for his support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza after the terrorist murders, kidnappings and atrocities on Oct. 7.

. . ."Conservatives on Tuesday accused Harris of caving to anti-Israel activists by declining to pick the popular swing-state governor.

“I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of the antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday before the decision was announced. “The far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American.”

"Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, slammed Walz for his endorsement of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the most strident critics of Israel in the House and a vocal member of the progressive “Squad.”

“ 'Of particular concern for the American Jewish community is Governor Walz’s embrace of the most vicious anti-Israel and antisemitic member of Congress, Ilhan Omar,” Brooks stated. “Walz has endorsed and supported this notorious ‘Squad’ member for years, championing her as a ‘progressive leader’ in Congress.”

"Omar congratulated Walz on Tuesday for being selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

“ 'Our North Star state governor has signed universal school meals, paid family and sick leave, marijuana legalization and protections for reproductive rights into law,” wrote Omar, posting a photo of her together with Walz." . . .

The people Harris wants to please or else:  The Anne Frank statue in Amsterdam was vandalized with "Free Gaza" for the second time in a month, highlighting rising antisemitism in the Netherlands.

. . .“ 'This vandalism has touched our hearts yet again,” Anne Frank House executive director Ronald Leopold said. “The statue reminds us of a young girl, with ambitions and dreams. A girl who was murdered simply because she was Jewish. The daubing of the statue today is even more painful, on the day that Anne Frank was arrested, exactly 80 years ago today.' ” . . .

Anne Frank (1959) Final Moments  Perhaps like how Israelis felt on Oct 7, 2023 as "Palestinians" invaded homes and villages to murder, rape, and torture families, including children. And they did it "with glee" as Douglas Murray said. TD

Kamala Picking Walz: “This is doubling down on leftism and doubling down on anti-Israelism”

 Legal Insurrection

“Josh Shapiro sold his soul to be in contention for this nomination. And the Democrats sent a message that there is no place in the Democrat party for pro-Israel politicians. And that tells us how Kamala Harris will govern. She will govern to the lowest element of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel.”

 "Kamala Harris [or her handlers] has picked Tim Walz from Minnesota as her VP nominee. I’m completely shocked. The Democrats have been so strategic in what they’ve done, how they maneuvered Biden out of the race, how they installed Harris without her having to do an interview or any live vote by the delegates. This is a choice that I think is extremely risky. It really sets the stage for two major fault lines in our country.

"Tim Walz is about as far left as you’re going to get. That tells us that that is how Kamala Harris will govern. If she gets elected president, there’s no turning back. It will be a hard left administration, even more so than Biden.

"So they have doubled down on socialism. They have doubled down on leftism. They have doubled down on all of those big government priorities. So that’s number one takeaway.

"Takeaway number two is this goes right to the heart of the Israel fault line in American politics.

"Josh Shapiro has been humiliated. He was forced, to be a contender, to disavow his Jewishness, to disavow his pro-Israel stances. He was not somebody ultimately Democrats were willing to have on the ticket because the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic base of the Democratic Party, the far left base, the people who were tearing down statues and defacing monuments and attacking anyone they think is Israeli, or anyone who is pro-Israeli, that is now who runs the party. This is now the party of the far left and the anti-Israel left." . . .

Men, Don’t ‘Shut Up,’ Rise Up — And ‘Fight, Fight, Fight’ For J.D.

His offense: asserting in a 2021 Tucker Carlson interview that America is “effectively run … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives … and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

It seems that the Buckeye State’s junior senator was insulting heartbroken women suffering from infertility and that, per the wholly-Uniparty-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board, his remarks don’t “play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.”

The Journal’s suggestion: hide behind the skirts of his attorney spouse, Usha, who “might help persuade swing voters that Mr. Vance respects women more than his comments have made it seem.”

. . . "Now, feminists drunk with “girl power” – and again abetted by girlie men – have upped the ante: They’re not just trying to run the country, but leveraging Vance’s comments out-of-context to dictate who gets the top job. But also thereby stepping up their scorched-Earth efforts to reshape social norms through an all-out assault on marriage, child-raising, and especially male family headship.

"The reticence of the male conservative cohort to defend Vance is reminiscent of the time, during the serial sexual assault character assassinations on conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh, Hawaiian harridan Mazie Hirono (another childless woman politician, allegedly a U.S. senator) memorably demanded that “the men in this country just shut up and step up.”

"Never mind that the GOP pajama boy wing’s pathetic, Lilliputian pandering on Vance is, in the Journal’s telling, inspired by concerns about an electoral cohort not even remotely “gettable” for Republicans. Cue Pew Research: “Women who have never been married are three times as likely to associate with the Democratic Party as with the Republican Party (72% vs. 24%).”  

The New Olympic Sport: Woman Beating

There appears to be a strange serendipity in that people who declare these men to be women also tend to feel Joe Biden has been a great President. Maybe even worthy of being on Mount Rushmore. TD

Brian C. Joondeph

Women athletes should just say 'no' and refuse to compete against biologic men. No women, no competition, no games, no viewers, no revenue. The left won’t behave based on logic or common sense, but they will over money. Time to Bud Light the Olympics!

. . ."A female volleyball player was “left paralyzed with brain damage by transgender opponent who 'cackled with delight' after knocking her to ground.” A trans-female MMA fighter fractured the orbital socket of a biologic female MMA fighter about a decade ago.

"Trans apologists pooh-pooh an orbital fracture as no big deal despite the fact that it can cause blindness due optic nerve compression. Are they dismissing paralysis too?

"Biologic males competing against women turns Title IX and the entire women’s rights and empowerment movements upside down. Helen Reddy once sang, “I am woman, hear me roar.” Roaring about the injustice now will lead to personal and professional ruin via the woke police." . . .

. . ."Left-wing corporate media defend this travesty.

"From the Economic Times:

The biological profile of Khelif depicts a complex scenario. She has differences of sex development (DSD), a condition where she was born a woman and identifies as such. Her increased testosterone levels and XY chromosomes—characteristics commonly associated with male athletes—are the outcome of this disorder. The reason behind her disqualification from the 2023 World Boxing Championships was her excessive testosterone levels, which also caused her to fail a gender eligibility test.

"Sorry but XY chromosomes are male, not “commonly” male, even if the genitals are ambiguous. The National Institute of Health defines, “Females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have one X and one Y.”

It seems the IOC can’t define a woman, similar to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who also can’t define a woman.  

  The left failed to see this was ripe for parody. 

 Referee Warns Olympic Women’s Boxing Finalists Not To Punch Each Other In The Testicles

. . ."Boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, who prepared to face off in the final after mercilessly pounding women with their fists, agreed that hits below the belt would not be acceptable. "It's quite painful," Khalif said through an interpreter. "No one competing for the women's gold medal should have to experience being hit in the testicles.'"

ABC Host YELLS at Byron Donalds For Questioning Kamala Harris

Watch as an ABC host, George Stephanopoulos SNAPS at Byron Donalds as he takes on Kamala Harris. Stay tuned for the heated debate and fiery arguments!

Byron Donalds Blasts ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos For His Meltdown On Live TV (dailywire.com)   "Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) slammed ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, who was the Press Secretary for President Bill Clinton (D), during an interview over the weekend after Stephanopoulos yelled at and scolded Donalds for responding to his questions about former President Donald Trump’s remarks on Vice President Kamala Harris’ race.

"Donalds made the remarks during a Sunday interview on “This Week” when asked about Trump’s remarks last week about Harris’ racial identity.

"Donalds said that the entire ordeal was a “phony controversy” that most people do not care about but added that in the past, even publications like the Associated Press had referred to Harris in headlines the “first Indian-American US Senator.”

“ 'It doesn’t really matter. The president mentioned it,” Donalds said. “What he also talks about far more frequently is the fact that Kamala Harris is the person who created this massive inflation which is destroying black families, white families, Hispanic families. It’s her failure as border czar that has left our southern border wide open. More than 10 million illegal immigrants coming into our country. Record fentanyl coming into our country which has killed more Americans than at any other point in the history of our country with respect specifically to fentanyl.”

"Stephanopoulos fired back at Donalds and accused him of having “just repeated the slur again” and demanded to know why Donalds was questioning Harris’ racial identity." . . .

Jon Voight's Message Against Kamala Harris Takes Off Online

Newsweek 

""We the people are in danger and we must vote for President Trump as he will save this nation and the left are all afraid of his strength because he is only for the people. He's not for the power, the greed, the lies or wanting to destroy one's hard-earned earnings. We must stop this madness now, our children are in danger." 

 "Actor Jon Voight has criticized Vice President Kamala Harris in a video posted online and used the opportunity to once again throw his support behind Donald Trump, saying the current election cycle is "the war of our lifetime."

"Voight, father of Angelina Jolie, has been a vocal supporter of Trump over the past several years, including during the former president's run-up to the 2024 race. Harris became a late entrant after President Joe Biden announced in July that he would not be seeking reelection, following weeks of pressure from within his own party and from key Democratic donors to step down amid concerns over his age and mental acuity.

"In the video posted to X (formerly Twitter) that he captioned "Civil War," Voight expressed his disapproval of Harris, saying "we the people are in trouble" if she wins the election. He encouraged those watching his video to "stop this crime that is happening."

"At the time of writing, the video had been viewed over 157,000 times.

"Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Voight, Trump and Harris for comment on Tuesday.                                           Civil War pic.twitter.com/m78FFPKgWy

                          — Jon Voight (@jonvoight) August 6, 2024

 . . ."Voight concluded the video by sharing his hope that both God and Trump will bring America back together." . . .

Kamala better treat Mr. Voight with respect or this could happen: Cosmo Kramer gets bitten by Jon Voight